The best advice I can offer is to stay organized and make sure to follow up with your volunteers! Make sure they well understand what you expect from them and what they can expect from you. Also, delegate, delegate, delegate!!! You cannot do it all and you should never try! You will lose your joy if you do! and don't sweat the small stuff!! The kids will love it no matter what the decs look like or what kind of food is served!! The most important thing is to serve God and let HIS light shine through us, so the kids will want to serve HIM too!! I will be praying for you!! Keep your chin up.
My number one peice of advice: enlist a prayer director and pray pray pray. Equally important to that is to always remember and remind all your volunteers that the ultimate goal is to see souls saved, the rest is just a vapor if it isn't done with an eternal perspective in mind.
Posts: 146 | Location: Buies Creek, NC | Registered: March 26, 2008
Thank you! What is the best way to communicate with your volunteers? I have over 60 and can't seem to get information to them all. I thought about a bulletin board with VBS News-any other ideas?
First, my "best" advice is to avoid getting so caught up in the theme and decorations that you let the message "fall by the wayside."
About communication: meetings, of course (maybe repeating the same meeting on a weeknight, and a Saturday or Sunday morning...); however, nowadays: email? blog? personal phone calls? It's just not easy to have all volunteers available for meetings. If emailing important info, be sure to ask for a reply (if your e-box can handle the replies!!), so you know who DIDN'T get the info!
My best advice is to first pray, pray and then pray. We have an Awesome God and He will help you through it. Next, learn how to deligate the work to be most effect. And then last, relax and have fun. Don't worry about the things you can't control. Good luck Stephen
Posts: 3 | Location: First Family Church, Overland Park Kansas | Registered: April 15, 2008
Seriously. Delegate. Organize big-time. Keep it all in one notebook - always in one spot. Make lists that you can easily assign to others. Older ladies in our church are very willing to cut things out (such as palm tree leaves.) Some gals are willing to make lots of phone calls - reminding volunteers, calling old vbs students to register over the phone, etc. Teens are great for building sets, wrapping palm tree leaves, etc.
Hand over whatever you can.
Seriously.
People are willing to help - they want to be a part of this. Let them. This will free you up to focus on other things.
Put someone else in charge of the kitchen and snacks and even shopping for ingredients.
Put someone else in charge of Follow-up, just give them your registration lists.
Put someone else in charge of creating a bus list and map for drivers.
Grab teens to help direct students to their classrooms.
Even enlist parents as they drop off kids. Even they get excited about being a part of something so cool!
I agree with BluePickle except for some of what he said about followup. Delegate your followup but make sure they have full and accurate information. Don't just give them the lists, go over them with the follow-up team, make sure they have their ducks in a row.
Posts: 146 | Location: Buies Creek, NC | Registered: March 26, 2008
vbsdeb123 - I've found that one of the best ways to communicate to a whole staff of volunteer is this: You communicate to the lead teacher of each group; then the lead teacher communicates with his/her group of teachers.
We also have 1 large team meeting and then another meeting with just lead teachers. We usually do at least 1-2 mailouts to the entire staff (like a newsletter). Next year, we are planning on preparing a VBS Handbook to give out as folks sign up to help with VBS.
As the others have said, you must PRAY and ask Him to provide your every need.
We have found that e-mails work really well for communicating with at least 1/2 our leaders. The others respond well to phone calls and mail outs. Our leaders have really enjoyed the lifeway e-postcards, and it helps also because it lets us know when our workers get the post card with an e-mail notice! It's great!
Posts: 146 | Location: Buies Creek, NC | Registered: March 26, 2008
Thanks for all the great advice. We are 1 week away from our VBS (my first as director). Things are going pretty well. Please send up a little prayer for us. Thanks!
I organized my volunteers into groups based on what they were doing ie: Teachers, Teacher Assistants, Worship, ect. and had meetings with each group; that way the meeting could be somewhat short and it also made it easier to organize and get people there.
to communicate the same thing to a lot of people... the VBStools online has been handy for me. we are a small church, but a majority of the volunteers have internet/email. email is the way to go! especially when something hits you at 11:30 at night and you can't make phone calls then... you can send it in an email and they'll read it when they are awake.
our church also has a "mailbox" system. it's a hanging file crate with hanging files with each church families name on the tabs, filed alphabetically by last name. it's in the back of the auditorium on the table where all the printed announcement flyers, etc. are.
paperwork gets put in a person's mailbox, and they check their folder when they are at church on a Sunday or mid-week, etc.
if I have an announcement for all volunteers... I just leave it for the church secretary with the list of names for it to go to. she copies them and puts them in the folders.
if someone needs copies for their classroom, they leave it for the secretary, and the copies get put back in their mail folder by the next Sunday.
it's great for Christmas cards, too -- saves everyone a lot of postage!
there were some nay-sayers when I first put it out, said that people wouldn't use it or check it, but now people jokingly whine about how they DIDN'T get anything in their mail folder! lol people go right to it after the drop their Bible, purse, coat, etc. in their pew.
Posts: 1 | Location: New Hampshire | Registered: June 20, 2008
So how did your first year go? I am preparing for yet another year. I have been a director, teacher and find that my best job is as the overall decorator. I have a vision for that. But I also float and help to organize things and try to assist the director in small areas that really do not have a title. Sometimes I have made master lists of all supplies so mutiple teachers do not buy packages of the same items and we have lots of unusable left overs. I do not always have the same time available every year - but have found that if you find the volunteers strengths and run with them you will have repeat volunteers for future years. Ask each one what did they struggle with or what did they learn that they feel they could help other volunteers make their job easier. If they could e-mail them to you, you could do a group contacts forward and have your own community sharing board!
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